Governmentality: Welfare, Health and Higher Education as Sites of Agency, Resistance and Identity

  • Jackie Goode

    Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis

    Abstract

    The work that is submitted here for the degree of PhD by publication comprises one book, one book chapter, and fourteen papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Many arise from qualitative research projects on which I was the appointed researcher. I am sole author on five of the publications, lead author on seven, and joint author on four. The publications span the years 1998-2007. They are included in full, and are examined, using Foucault's notion of 'governmentality', in an overview.

    The projects were designed and conducted during a particular era in history (characterised as 'risk society' or 'reflexive modernity'), dominated by a particular political ideology (characterised as 'neo-liberal'), and all examined aspects of public service delivery and use. Using Foucault's notion of governmentality, this body of research is concerned with questions of how we govern, and how we are governed, and with the relation between the government of ourselves, the government of others, and the government of the state. Foucault suggests that it is only through the analysis of various micro-sites that practices of power or governmentality might be identified. The research collected here represents a study of governmentality in the 'micro-sites' of welfare, (in this case, the provision and use of social security benefits); health care (the delivery and 'consumption' of NHS Direct, an innovative health care service); and education (in particular, the management of change in Higher Education, and the production of university learning, teaching and research).
    Date of AwardJun 2007
    Original languageEnglish

    Keywords

    • Governmentality
    • The State
    • Power (Social sciences)
    • government and the people
    • welfare
    • health care
    • education

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